


Into the Garden of Eden

by crinkledpages



Series: Let's pretend we love the dark [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Half-Witch! Jisung, M/M, Magical Realism, Magical being! Chenle (not going to give it away here ahaha), Red String of Fate AU, Veiled Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26443525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinkledpages/pseuds/crinkledpages
Summary: The key to escaping their own worlds lies in finding the red string of fate. For Jisung, it's to save his coven. For Chenle, to leave his home (his prison). They only have one year to find it, to find each other, and Chenle will be damned if he loses his chance.
Relationships: Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le
Series: Let's pretend we love the dark [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905010
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	Into the Garden of Eden

**Author's Note:**

> For SVT Fear Exchange's Septemfear drabble challenge ~
> 
> Day 13: Muffle

It begins when it ends. The day, that is. Just for those fifty-nine seconds between 00:00 and 00:01 - the time taken for a couple of hundred thoughts whizzing through the brain, a memory unfiltered - Jisung sees it. The pathway. At the other end of that string is a garden with a dapple of moonlight piercing through the canopy of dark green broadleaved wild trees. 

If he could just locate that string, loop it around his wrist, follow it until he pushed his way through out of darkness, out of their tattered excuse for a coven into this loose version of paradise. 

This was how his witch mother had described it: golden apples hanging from rows and rows of trees lined up on each side of the pathway - the end of which no one is sure what exactly lies. Bathing pools that glistened a bright silver. A sky that was always blue and cloudless, always day, never night. Birds fluttering about and taking to the skies. Never seen grounded. 

The Garden of Eden? Jisung isn’t sure, but it just might be, if this was indeed the end of one life and the beginning of another. 

For many of his friends and family, the red string has remained elusive, and therefore, a myth. Only his mother has stayed a firm believer. _Find the string, find your purpose, and get out of here._

_“But, what’s at the end of the string?” Jisung had asked._

_“Light. Something to bring us out of the dark. The path will come to you in your dreams. Don’t fight it._

Don’t fight it, Jisung repeats to himself. Don’t. Fight. 

He closes his eyes. He’s seen this pathway for the past few months, since he came of age. And he only has a year to find the string before the dreams stop coming to him. But always only the pathway is what he’s been able to see, and the rest of the ticking time is spent stumbling left and right, looking under a mass of shrubs, digging his fingers into cold soil. 

An echo shudders through the expanse. It’s a long sentence, and Jisung strains to hear it. But he’s never been able to. He’s opened everything of himself - his eyes, ears, all five senses - but everything has remained closed off, like he’s not actually meant to find paradise after all. He’s not special. 

The echo rings out a second time, and it’s so muffled, like someone clapping a hand over the words. Jisung dashes to the oak trees standing stoic and grand. He’s never run quite this far before, but time is running out. 

He sprints, legs pumping almost painfully to where he thinks the source of the sound is. 

And then he wakes up.

***

To be seen is the prize. 

Chenle steps out from under the shadow of the giant pine tree into the blinding rays of sunshine. A thin thread of red curls loosely about his right hand, odd knots tightened and tangled around the fingers. It’s a messy thing, but Chenle pays it no mind, because the goal is to be found. 

He’s wrapped hundreds of strings around himself over the years but no one’s ever been able to find him. When? When will he meet them? His ticket out of this angelic hell to freedom, that is. 

Chenle looks about for a second, then he takes off, running to the field of oak trees. He’s never really ventured outside of his territory, but something needs to change so that his future can change. 

It's not allowed, but Chenle has given up on playing by the rules. There's an insistent tug pulling him to the trees beyond, and he's never one to shy from intuition.

He reaches the bottom of the nearest oak tree, and shouts the chant that will open the channel between his world and the one just a thin veil beyond. He manages to get in a total of two chants, and an electric ripple suddenly courses through him, threading through the red string, seeping into his hands, his arms, his body, his bones. 

It’s that telling sign, the lightning before the wondrous thunder storming above signalling their meeting. A flash of light streaks his vision, and then the thunder does descend - the gorgeous white noise roaring over his ears as the image of a boy under an oak tree - a mirror of the one he’s standing under - unfolds before him. Oh god. He’s found someone - him - at last. Hope unfurls. 

Then his time ticks to an end, the channel closes, and Chenle has to wait for another new day to try again.

***

There is power in suggestion. Chenle’s figured it out now. A light push here, a tiny nudge there. 

Today, he goes to one of the gleaming silver pools, placing his hand on the surface, willing it to gurgle. _Come here_ , he sends, through the furious bubbling. _Jump into the water._

He does this for the next few days, hoping he’s smart enough to pick up on the changes around him. He watches through the translucent barrier as the boy approaches, body tight with apprehension today, but dipping a hesitant but bold finger in the next day. 

It’s after four days that the boy - his soulmate, Chenle reminds himself with a delirious smile pasted on - braves the surface and plunges into the water fully. Chenle rejoices. Here, underwater, there is no barrier, nothing to muffle his voice. They make it this difficult on purpose of course, but Chenle’s perseverance is nothing but steel. 

He’s tired of trying so hard, though. He wishes fervently that this is one of the last few times that he has to. 

In the water, he spreads his fingers wide, meeting the boy eye to eye, only that Chenle is invisible to him. Well, Chenle will change that, now. He whispers instructions for him to chant the words he will need to say to finally shatter the barrier, to reveal the red string, with Chenle waiting on the other end.

***

Jisung scoops in a deep, brave breath into his lungs and then launches into the icy cold water. 

He realises why underwater, now. He can hear everything clearly. And that voice, the one that’s been unravelling his soul for so long, sends shivers through him. It’s telling him what to say, and he feels an invisible throb around his finger - where the red string would be. 

Jisung nods his head, forcing himself to burn the words into his brain. He repeats the words over and over, until it’s one minute past midnight, and then the cycle of waiting repeats. 

***

It’s near midnight, two days before his twentieth birthday, and Jisung is grounded in the knowledge that he _is_ special, after all. 

At eleven fifty-nine, he slides the covers up and over his head, shrouding his surroundings and his eyes to the rest of this world. 

He closes his eyes, heart picking up speed as he hears his watch tick loudly, counting the seconds. 

Jisung doesn’t have to look at the watch to know when it’s time, because his finger pulses and the aroma of fresh air and dew-touched flora invades his nose. 

He runs to a pine tree, speaks the words quickly, but makes sure they’re loud and clear. And then the ground starts to shake under his feet, and there’s a deep rumbling piercing the sky overhead. Jisung tries not to cover his ears or his eyes because he doesn’t want to miss it, miss anything for this moment. 

A breeze picks up. Angry clumps of moss and lalang wave about. Jisung feels the urge to wave to them too. Already, he feels like his old world has already crumbled to ashes and that he belongs to this one.

“Hello?” He whispers, testing his voice in this world for the first time. 

He’s sure that one minute has passed, but the fact that he’s still here means that he’s won, that he’s found the beginning of the red string. 

He raises his right hand, pushing it out in front of him, flexing it as he waits for the big, grand, life-changing moment to descend. Briefly, he considers that he’s just dreaming for a little longer than normal, but then he watches in stupefaction as a hand peeks through mid-air to loop a thin thread of bright red around his forefinger. And then their fingers are interlaced, and a boy steps through an invisible barrier. And Jisung understands it now - his mission was never to find the red string, but the person at the other end.

He gasps, shock taking over, his knees hitting the ground with a hard thump. “Hello,” that voice that can rend his heart to shreds says. “I’m Chenle.”

“Jisung,” he chokes, squeezing Chenle’s hands tightly. 

It begins when it ends. Their worlds as they know it, that is. Nothing hidden or muffled anymore, everything shining with startling clarity.

“Shall we?” Chenle murmurs, placing a warm hand over his cheek. 

“We’re not staying here?” His voice comes out croaky. 

“Why would we? This is hell for me.”

“Then...where?”

“To yours. It’ll be different now, with me. We were meant to find each other. And we’ll join the others who have found their own soulmates too.” 

Jisung wants to ask more, but he senses that questions can come later. Nodding, he uses his grip on Chenle to stand. 

“To my world then,” he says, and his voice is a little steadier with Chenle’s hand grasped in his.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh I really wasn't sure where this was going, but I enjoyed playing around with the prompt and writing this short chenji ~ It was fun!
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/moonkyoung_)


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